Being more objective about and positive/negatives of major aspects of one's life.
Since this is HN, I'll talk about having a technical role/job. It's really easy to feel that something fantastic (e.g. a great business problem, the latest tech stack, a great work environment) is present at another job feel miserable because your current job doesn't have that one thing. Many times this is just your own projection (and you may not project the negatives around that one thing) You can then jump to another job based on this projection and feel even more miserable than you did before you took the job because now you realize you were only projecting that this missing thing existed at your new job.
Going along this with, you project how great that one missing thing will be, but not realize that one missing thing is going to have negatives as well.
You can also minimize the negatives - My work environment/boss/tech stack is terrible, but most jobs are like this so I'll stay. Again, you project the negatives to another place out of fear that leaving your current job will be a mistake.
It's a long and hard series of lessons to get to the point where you can be somewhat objective what's missing, what's okay to be missing, what needs to be there for you to be content, and the ways resolve this. That way you can be more balanced about what you need from a job what you need to from outside your job.
Oh yeah, and this applies to personal factors as well. Agree with you though. I have moved jobs and I have found that there's tradeoffs. You may get more pay, better tech stack, etc, but might have to live further from family & friends.
Since this is HN, I'll talk about having a technical role/job. It's really easy to feel that something fantastic (e.g. a great business problem, the latest tech stack, a great work environment) is present at another job feel miserable because your current job doesn't have that one thing. Many times this is just your own projection (and you may not project the negatives around that one thing) You can then jump to another job based on this projection and feel even more miserable than you did before you took the job because now you realize you were only projecting that this missing thing existed at your new job.
Going along this with, you project how great that one missing thing will be, but not realize that one missing thing is going to have negatives as well.
You can also minimize the negatives - My work environment/boss/tech stack is terrible, but most jobs are like this so I'll stay. Again, you project the negatives to another place out of fear that leaving your current job will be a mistake.
It's a long and hard series of lessons to get to the point where you can be somewhat objective what's missing, what's okay to be missing, what needs to be there for you to be content, and the ways resolve this. That way you can be more balanced about what you need from a job what you need to from outside your job.